China is a one-legged horse. If it succeeds, it will succeed spectacularly, but if it fails, it will fail disastrously. There is no middle ground. Since 1949, China has already seen both extremes-the millions of deaths and destruction caused by the Great Leap and Cultural Revolution as well as the sterling successes of the economic progress since 1979.

No one can tell which way China will go in the future, but India will trod along slowly but surely just as she has been doing since 1947. There have been no major disasters unlike China, but also no world-beating achievements either.

i dont think i need to care if China's government fiscal revenue is catching up India's GDP......with or without india prc has its own problems to deal with and if we really need a yardstick to measure against maybe the us is the only 1 we need to really consider.....

i dont think i need to care if China's government fiscal revenue is catching up India's GDP......with or without india prc has its own problems to deal with and if we really need a yardstick to measure against maybe the us is the only 1 we need to really consider.....

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What i wanna say is: Some people are still debating that India have superiority on Military and technology. But they are in fact comparing a nation with 5 times GDP as India.If you just the real data not the emotion to compare the things, the conclusion would be: game over!

For example in military spending: If both nation keep the same ratio of GDP on military spending let's say 2% of GDP, China's military should be much more stronger both on quality and quantity since 5 times budget really means a lot. Let alone most Chinese major weapon systems are home made and those money finally benefit its own industrial chain. But India's money are more used for foreign purchase (like fighters and AC). So the real gap might be not 5 times or even more...

One has to question why Chinese governmetn revenue is growing at 24.8% rate while our personal income is growing much slowly. I just can't trust our "people servant" officials can prudently manage those money.

What i wanna say is: Some people are still debating that India have superiority on Military and technology. But they are in fact comparing a nation with 5 times GDP as India.If you just the real data not the emotion to compare the things, the conclusion would be: game over!

For example in military spending: If both nation keep the same ratio of GDP on military spending let's say 2% of GDP, China's military should be much more stronger both on quality and quantity since 5 times budget really means a lot. Let alone most Chinese major weapon systems are home made and those money finally benefit its own industrial chain. But India's money are more used for foreign purchase (like fighters and AC). So the real gap might be not 5 times or even more...

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China's nominal GDP is 4x that of India, not 5x. In 2004, China's GDP was $1.93 trillion.

So India is ~7.5 to 8 years behind China. In real dollar terms, it may be more like 9 years.

As China develops, your GDP growth rate will inevitably fall. It will be aided by the aging Chinese workforce (median age of China = 35.9 years). On the other hand, India will continue to grow for at least a decade after China slows just because India is much behind in the developmental race. The other factor that helps India is that it has one of the youngest workforces in the world (median age of India = 25 years), so the growth will last longer-India will grow rich before it grows old, while China is already growing old before growing rich enough.

The ageing countries face a future of smaller workforces, lower savings rates and higher government debt. They may well lose dynamism and international clout as well, as growth sags and military spending falls. Will this be China's future too? By far the most massive decline in young manpower, aged 15 to 29, is set to take place in China. The US Census Bureau forecasts that in the next two decades this key working age group, which tends to be better educated and healthier than older employees, will fall by 100 million, or over 30 per cent. The bureau predicts that China's population will peak in 2026, then age rapidly.

Among major economies, only Japan has aged faster. However, Japan got rich before it grew old. This is something that China, with a per-capita income of just $US3000 ($A2880), has yet to achieve. It may never be able to do so if Chinese keep having few children and living longer. Before the government enacted the one-child per couple policy in the late 1970s, China's fertility rate (births per woman per lifetime) was about 2.7. Today it is around 1.5, some 30 per cent below the level that demographers say is needed for population stability. Despite the recent deceleration of China's economic expansion, Beijing still forecasts a continued average annual growth rate of approximately 7 per cent between now and 2030. This rosy prognosis has been accepted by many analysts and officials in Asia and the international financial community, even though no other big economy in world history has ever grown so fast for so long.

The scope of this difference between China and India cannot be underestimated. According to UN figures, China's dependency ratio has already flattened since 2010. In the next twenty years, China will only add a net number of 10 million workers to its labour force. In comparison, India will add 241 million people in the same time period.

Jaeger says in the â€œpopulation dividendâ€ model, it is the dependency ratio (that is, dependent population relative to the working-age population) rather than the absolute increase (or decrease) in the size of the working-age population that is the economically most relevant variable. If the dependency ratio declines, i.e. the working-age population as a share of the total population increases, per-capita growth accelerates. By the same token, a rising dependency ratio is a â€œdragâ€ on growth. He says interestingly, empirical research suggests that the drag stemming from a rise in the dependency ratio due to rising old-age dependency seems to be somewhat smaller than the â€œdividendâ€ stemming from an equivalent decline in the dependency ratio due to falling youth dependency.

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In short, yes, China at the moment has done very well and its economic policies and good management have made it the world's 2nd largest economy. Even if China slows down, it is destined to become one of the world's top three economies and military powers in the next two decades. However, China will not enjoy total world domination unlike the US since WWII because India will jostle with China for the top spot and US will be a very close #3.

The top three countries will likely carve the world among themselves....China will demand a free hand in East Asia, the US will continue to be top dog in the North Atlantic/Europe and India will control much of the Indian Ocean region. The ME will be a zone where the three will likely co-operate to ensure uninterrupted flow of energy supplies.